Todays school swimming lessons could seriously damage your child. 

20% of our children are traumatized and left afraid of water for life.

Frank reports on poor ASA standards that waste school time and millions of pounds of public money.

Britains swimming Governing Body the ASA  come out with announcements of  "new ideas" and "new initiatives" all the time. Forget this ASA "spin"  it is only done to try and justify their funding .... and unfortunately it usually works.

The shameful truth is that swimming tuition in Britain has changed very little in the past 100 years, and without change nothing can improve. First we have to ditch the spin, and their false claims of success rates and look at  just how bad things really are.

Fact No 1 is that 90% of our children leave school unable to swim CORRECTLY. We are producing vast numbers of young adults who see themselves as failures. Is it any wonder that so many give up swimming in their teens? It is not cool to look a fool in the water at that age.  

By any reckoning our swimming education system is an utter failure. Shame on ASA Chief executive David Sparkes and his "paid" (ex ASA swimmers) mouth pieces for continuing to promote the silly outdated paddle stroke, artificial floatation aids, and head up, spine stressed, (swimming) Duncan Goodhew did it yet again on TV this very week (20 Nov 2010)  I have refused their money and I am happy to continue to expose British swimming tuition for what it is. A national disgrace.

No wonder so many thinking headmasters refuse to bother with swimming lessons at all, and who can blame them when it takes so very long for their pupils to generally fail by learning to struggle over just 25m by the age of 12? What a load of hogwash this 25m target is. It should be a mile at least. Any 12 year old who can swim 25m CORRECTLY can continue and swim 1500m with ease. Indeed, any six year old who swims CORRECTLY can swim 1500m with ease. An independent Mr Goodhew used to agree with me on this, but sadly money seems to have changed his opinions and his values.

We are supposed to be preparing children to thrive in the world after they leave school. So who on earth set that ridiculously low target by the age of 12? 

Taught CORRECTLY 90% of our children would be achieving 1500m by the age of 10 and for half the money that it costs for them to fail today. 

So why are our teaching standards so poor? Because the ASA would rather bluff their way around their failure rates and pay people to help them to hide the shameful truth rather than change their teaching methods that produce non swimmers or poor swimmers 9 times out of 10. 

Here is a typical example of an ASA Teacher Training Course that took place recently. It explains why every parent in Britain should be weary of placing their loved ones in the hands of an ASA teacher. I have been an ASA advanced teacher for over 30 years, but having a working brain, I have never followed their doctrine.

OXFORD 2008. Of ten trainee teachers doing the one week qualifying course, three looked like young asbo,s on release (and probably funded) by their local councils. Five people attending the course were unable to swim properly, some not at all. At one point the ASA Tutor running the course was asked by a trainee teacher for help to get their pupils feet up in order to kick them on the surface. The Tutor (God bless her!) called the whole class together for a "TOP TIP" solution (her words not mine) Her advice was ....... to "put armbands around the pupils ankles" .................. this from an ASA Tutor in the 21st Century ..... I rest my case! Two days later everyone sat the end of week exam. Three people were clearly head and shoulders above "the rest" so alarmingly the Tutor decided to forward only those three papers for an assessment that would cover the whole class. There were clearly several people on that course who should not have been there, but as everyone gained a pass based on the strongest three, school children were being taught soon after by the "also rans"   Stand up Mr Sparkes and explain this rubbish if you can, your work is an outdated useless and ineffective waste of public money.  

We desperately need a new 21st Century Curriculum and I will never stop fighting for it.  Poor teaching is not only cultivating incorrect techniques and ineffective skills, it is creating resistance to any future contact and enjoyment of water and water sports in adults. 

David Sparkes has always been afraid to stand up to my criticisms and measure my methodology against his outdated methods, even when advised to do so my British swimming analyst Kelvin Juba several years ago. He has much to answer for, but he will retire in financial comfort leaving British children as the losers.